The dispensing of viscous condiments, e.g., mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, sandwich spreads and the like, is commonly done in restaurants. In order to handle the volume throughput requirements in restaurant kitchens, devices have been constructed for dispensing such condiments from tubes (packages) with the assistance of mechanical pump-type devices. Such devices are similar in construction to caulking guns. An example of such a device may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,231. While such devices have been effective, they do have some shortcomings.
It is desirable to eliminate material from the tubes that is not necessary. Even a small amount of material savings in a container can result in significant cost savings because of the large quantity required by restaurants, particularly in the fast food industry. However, to eliminate material, new assembly techniques may be needed necessitating new manufacturing equipment which adds again to the expense of the containers. Additionally, when viscous materials are contained in a container it is highly desirable to impede the migration of liquids such as water and lipids (fats) into the container material when such container material includes paperboard which can absorb and transfer such liquids by wicking. The absorption of such liquids can cause a detrimental appearance to the package and may even cause its unnecessary disposal. Typically, a condiment dispenser, such as that shown in the above-identified patent, was assembled using hot melt adhesives to join various container portions at the discharge end thereof. It would be desirable to reduce or eliminate this use of hot melt adhesive as a major element providing structural integrity to the package. Hot melt can cause detrimental generation of steam from moisture contained in various packaging components, particularly paperboard during assembly. The steam can cause problems such as forming tiny bubbles and/or holes through the hot melt thereby permitting oil and moisture to pass into raw edges of the paperboard tube. Thus, the tube (package) may become saturated, soften and begin to fall apart.
It is therefore desirable to provide an improved condiment dispenser. It is also desirable to provide an improved dispenser that has a reduction in the materials used and a reduction in the cost to manufacture.